


Dollhouse

by cytheriafalas



Category: Dollhouse, SHINee
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2013-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-17 21:34:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/872194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cytheriafalas/pseuds/cytheriafalas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a prompt on my tumblr, asking for a Dollhouse inspired fic. Two Actives are sent on an assassination.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dollhouse

“Did I fall asleep?”

“For a little while.”

“Shall I go now?”

“If you like.”

Delta sent Kibum a brilliant smile and stood up from the chair. Kibum could hardly believe that someone like Delta had ended up with them. He looked so remarkably innocent like this, bright eyes and a charming, if a little lopsided, smile. The smile transferred from Kibum to his handler when Onew rested his hand on Jonghyun’s shoulder.

“You did good today, Delta.”

“Was I my best?” Delta asked earnestly.

“You were.”

“I try to be my best.”

Onew smiled. “I know you do. Now, why don’t you go get a massage?”

“I like massages.” Delta moved out of the room at the strangely sedate pace all Actives had when they were wiped, fingers trailing along the wall. Kibum bent over the chair, checking a few displays.

“How was he?” Kibum asked.

“Just fine,” Onew answered. “I didn’t see anything strange.”

“With all the other problems we’ve been having lately…” Kibum sighed. “I’m going to recommend a few days off, just to make sure we’ve got a clean wipe. He’s been busy.”

“He is our number one,” Onew said, but he didn’t sound pleased about the fact. “ _I_ can tell that he’s tired, but because the exhaustion isn’t part of our imprints, he doesn’t even realize it.”

“I’ll go for a week then.” Kibum flicked a few strands of hair out of his eyes. He ran his hand up Onew’s arm, squeezing his shoulder. “Get some rest yourself. You look exhausted.”

Onew yawned at that, pressing his fist to his mouth. “I think… Yes. Get some sleep yourself.”

Kibum nodded, waving over his shoulder. He was completely absorbed in analyzing the data from Delta’s last assignment and didn’t notice anyone else entering the room until someone tapped him on the shoulder. He jumped, spinning to face the intruder. It was Lee Soo Man, the man who ran the Dollhouse.

“Sir! I’m sorry, I was…”

He gestured dismissively. “You were doing your job, Kibum. It’s fine. However, I need a favor.”

That set off warning bells chiming in Kibum’s head. Favors… favors were never good. “Yes, sir?”

“I need two Actives for a very important, very sensitive engagement.”

“Sure,” Kibum said, turning to his computer. “What kind of skills do they need?”

“Assassination.”

Kibum turned back around slowly. Assassination was also never good. It also spoke of government involvement, which they’d long ago sworn off. “Sir, I thought we weren’t going to get involved in that kind of work.”

“It goes above even my head. I want Kilo and…” Mr. Lee pursed his lips, but Kibum had a sinking feeling he knew the next name out of his mouth. “Delta.”

“Sir, I highly recommend giving Delta at least a few days off. He’s been so busy lately and we don’t know the effect that many imprints in such a short time will have. Foxtrot has been--”

“We need our best on this one. The file has the rest of the information that you’ll need. How long do you think it’ll take?”

Kibum took the folder and flipped through it. “Three or four hours to make the implant, maybe another hour or so to get Kilo and Delta ready.”

“Good. Get on it.”

It only took him two and a half hours to build the imprints, and then a half hour later, Minho led Kilo into the room. Kilo sat easily on the chair, sliding back into it and waiting for Kibum to start the process.

“Are you ready to start your treatment, Kilo?” Kibum asked.

“Yes,” Kilo said, smiling up at him. The chair tilted backwards and Kilo’s eyes closed. After several minutes, his eyes opened again and the quiet innocence of their Dolls was gone. Kilo sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the chair.

“So where is he?”

“He’ll be a few more minutes,” Kibum said, knowing he was referring to Delta. Kilo—Taemin, this one’s name was—gave him a weary look.

“Of course he is. He's _always_ late. Come on, let’s wait outside.”

Minho gave Kibum almost an identical look to his Active and followed him out the door. The last thing Kibum heard from them before they descended the stairs was Taemin saying, “Don’t roll your eyes at me, Minho. Move it.”

“That was a pretty quick week,” Onew remarked when he led Delta through the door. Delta trailed behind him, his head half-tilted.

“You’re angry,” he said. “Why are you angry? Was I not my best?”

“I’m sorry. Mr. Lee requested him personally. I tried to recommend Foxtrot, but he had none of it.”

Onew had to stop to console Delta, promising him that he was his best and that he wasn’t angry at him. Delta had always been sensitive to criticism. It was an anomaly in his personality that they’d never managed to completely wipe. At last Onew managed to coax him into the chair, petting his hair rather like someone would pet a puppy.

Delta sat back in the chair and Jonghyun sat up from it, running a hand through his hair.

“Is Taemin here?”

“He’s waiting for you outside.”

Jonghyun grinned, pushing himself up and out of the chair. He paused by the window overlooking the Dollhouse and checked his hair, arranging it just so, and then headed out. Onew gave Kibum a long-suffering look, but followed him.

\---

“Get your ass in gear,” Taemin’s voice called when Jonghyun stepped out the back door. Onew took a few steps ahead of him, looking warily around the empty parking garage. Jonghyun was briefly amused that after their last six years together, Onew still thought he needed to protect him. “We’re gonna miss the whole event.”

Jonghyun nudged Taemin with his shoulder as he passed, reaching to step up into the van. “Let’s go. If you keep bitching, we _are_ going to be late.”

He missed the step, however, as Taemin grabbed his elbow and jumped ahead, making a face back at him. Jonghyun rolled his eyes and stepped up after him, sliding into a chair. Onew and Minho followed, the younger man shutting the van’s doors and thumping once on the roof. The van started moving and Taemin was already typing at one of the computers, pulling up a grainy photograph of their target.

“Okay, here he is,” Taemin said, tapping the picture.

Jonghyun grimaced. “That could be anyone.”

“Yeah, and North Korea doesn’t exactly release pictures of their high-level politicians to make it easy for us to assassinate them, Jonghyun.”

“Oh, so he doesn’t want us to kill him?” Jonghyun asked, a mocking lilt to his voice. “That makes this a little more difficult.”

Despite their bickering, they got things done. It was why the government had hired them after all, through the Agency, of course. The government couldn’t be seen with its hands in an assassination attempt, not so close to an election, especially if they failed. Jonghyun scoffed to himself. Not that they would fail. They hadn’t failed since… well, there was that one time, but those were completely extenuating circumstances.

Taemin snapped his fingers. “Focus.”

“Right. How do you want to do this?”

“He’s supposed to be in China for a meeting tomorrow. I assume that’s where we’re going?” Taemin said, glancing up at Minho. He nodded.

“Good. They’re not going to expect us to be there.”

“We’re _not_ sneaking into his security detail again,” Taemin said. “That didn’t work all that well the first time.”

“Yeah, well if you hadn’t--”

“Shut up.” Taemin keyed up a map of the area around the meeting place. “This is the easiest road for them to make secure for the attendees.”

Jonghyun leaned around him. “Bring up the satellite view of the area.”

A few more taps later and the satellite imaging was overlaid over the map. Jonghyun pursed his lips. “I don’t think we can do it that way, not with any real control. Do you have his hotel information?”

Taemin scoffed. “Do I have his hotel information?”

“Cocky little…” Jonghyun trailed off, gripping Taemin’s shoulder sharply when he saw the information. “Oh, look at this. He’s such a darling for doing this for us.”

“Hm?” Onew asked. Jonghyun looked over his shoulder at him. He was sitting in one of their chairs, legs stretched out in front of him, waiting patiently to be filled in on what was going on.

“Seventh floor of a twenty-two story building. With a balcony and a shielded view from the primary road. He’s looking out at trees. We only have to dismantle building security, which our little Taemin can do with his eyes closed,” Taemin made a small sound of agreement, “and then it’s through the building, do the job, and then down over the balcony. Ten minutes, tops.”

“What about his personal security?” Minho asked.

“Flashbang,” Jonghyun said. “It’ll stun ‘em for… eh, long enough. We’re not paid to kill them, but if it happens, it happens. How long until we get to the airport?”

“About fifteen minutes,” Onew said, after glancing down at his watch.

Jonghyun nodded, sitting back in his seat and waiting.

\---

Jonghyun didn’t know how they always managed to have fully equipped vans waiting wherever they needed them, but he wasn’t going to question his employers. They did want him to succeed, after all.

“Okay,” Jonghyun said once they were all in the van, a nameless driver already pulling away from the curb. “We’ve got four hours to get done and out of the country before we run the risk of pinging Interpol.”

“It’ll take me at max fifteen or twenty minutes to hack into the hotel’s security system. It looks like everything here is secure, at least enough that by the time they trace it, we’ll be gone,” Taemin said, flicking a strand of hair out of his eyes.

“How long to the hotel?” Jonghyun called out to the driver.

“Twenty minutes, with the traffic the way it is.”

“Perfect,” Jonghyun said, turning to dig in his bag. He pulled out a set of clothes for Taemin and one for him. Taemin’s was an admittedly imperfect replica of a supposedly secret Chinese taskforce, but being as nobody was even supposed to know they existed, it was unlikely anyone would notice the flaws. Jonghyun’s were his standard operation clothes, specially modified by a spectacularly beautiful Parisian seamstress. It was unfortunate she’d died.

The years had made it fairly easy for them to balance in the back of a moving van, and aside from stumbling once as the driver swerved around _something_ that had him cursing, the two of them dressed with minor difficulty. Taemin went silently back to working his way through the security.

Jonghyun kept digging through his bag, pulling out two handguns, one for Taemin and one for himself, climbing equipment, a few stun grenades, and then, after a pause, two more guns for himself. He could feel Onew’s eyes on him, and when he looked over, he was sitting with his eyebrow raised.

“Are you planning to take on the military while you’re there?”

Jonghyun flashed him one of his brilliant, disarming, smiles. “You never know what you’re going to need.”

“And when they pull your pants down while you’re climbing?” Taemin asked. He didn’t even look up from the computer, but he knew Jonghyun well enough that he obviously had no doubt what they were talking about.

“Belt,” Jonghyun said. “And that’s why you don’t attach them to your pants.” At that, he bent to strap his 9 mil, his favorite, to his thigh. He winked when he caught Onew watching him and the other man just raised his eyebrow again. His .45 slipped into a holster beneath his left arm, and the final, a small Sig he’d gotten on a trip to Switzerland, went into a special holster built into his jacket pocket.

Taemin made a pleased noise. “And they think they’re so smart. When we get closer, I’ll input the last few commands and then we’re golden. Hand it over.”

He held his hand out, looking up only when Jonghyun placed the rough metal of the semi-automatic in his palm. It wasn’t the standard firearm of this particular taskforce, but getting Taemin to change his weapon was kind of like trying to convince a child to give up their favorite toy: Possible, but generally completely not worth the trouble.

Jonghyun loved this. Not the killing, necessarily, but the adrenaline and the rush, the planning and execution. Seeing their plan come together perfectly.

“Don’t celebrate yet,” Taemin murmured, his hand on Jonghyun’s shoulder. “We’ve got a job to do, first.”

The driver’s voice came from the front of the van. “We’re about a minute out.”

Taemin slid back into his seat and typed out a few more things. A corresponding chime came from the computer. “Done. Park in that little… Yeah, that. Jonghyun, you ready?”

Jonghyun had been checking the straps of the glove on his right hand, ensuring the leather would stay in place. “When am I not?” He could finally see the faint flush of excitement on Taemin’s cheeks. They were professionals, sure, but they really liked their job. You had to, to be as good at it as they were. “Are _you_ ready?”

Jonghyun glanced out the window. It was easy to tell which balcony was the politician’s, if not because of the half-dozen flapping North Korean flags in the window, by the way the dark curtains twitched aside every so often and a face appeared there.

“You know how to contact us if you need us,” Onew reminded them.

“Be here when we get done and we won’t need to contact you,” Jonghyun teased. He sobered up quickly when Taemin’s hand caught the door handle. As irreverent as they were before an assignment, what they were doing was dangerous. Any one of these could turn fatal for one or both of them, and Jonghyun was not keen on letting that happen because he hadn’t been taking it seriously.

“Let’s go,” Jonghyun said.

Taemin pushed the door open and they jumped out, heading casually for the front door. Jonghyun’s jacket was long enough to cover the holster on his thigh, as long as he kept it buttoned, which he did until they stepped into the elevator. They strode through the front door unchallenged.

In fact, they made it all the way up to the seventh floor, halfway down the hallway before someone first called for them to stop in Korean. They kept walking until the first bodyguard caught Jonghyun’s arm, stopping him in his tracks.

“I said stop.”

Jonghyun smiled disarmingly, catching the look Taemin sent him out of the corner of his eye. “I don’t want to.”

It took just a moment for the words to sink in. The man’s eyes widened. “Seoul?” he demanded, obviously recognizing the accent.  
  
Jonghyun caught the other man’s wrist, twisting it behind his back and sending him flying to the ground. One quick movement and the man’s shoulder snapped out of joint, a second and his head snapped to the side, either unconscious or dead, Jonghyun didn’t bother to check.

His cry had raised the alarm and more guards were streaming out of the politician’s room. Jonghyun grinned over at Taemin.

“Ready?”

Taemin’s fingers brushed his, a brief reassurance that they wouldn’t abandon each other, and then he was running down the hallway, catching the first of the guards by the neck and flipping him to the ground. Jonghyun sprinted after him, smashing his elbow into someone’s face, sending him stumbling into a comrade and then into the wall.

They gained the door at the same time, despite Taemin’s head start. He was sporting a shallow cut along his lip, but he was grinning. Jonghyun pulled a stun grenade out of the band that ran along the inside of his jacket, flicked the pin and tossed it in the door. He and Taemin threw themselves to the side, squeezing their eyes shut and pressing their hands over the earplugs already in their ears.

Jonghyun heard a surprised shout and then the loud popping noise that accompanied the flashbang. They were up and through the door before the guards even finished falling to the ground. The target was easy to recognize, even with the grainy picture. The .45 slid out of his holster like a breath of air and Jonghyun fired. The target jerked once, and then fell still.

“Taemin, let’s go!” He threw the coiled rope to Taemin and the younger man caught it, sprinting toward the balcony doors. He pulled his gun and shot twice, shattering the glass and diving through the curtain.

Jonghyun was three steps from relative safety when he felt a sharp, burning pain in his calf, a moment before heard the crack of the gunshot. He must have reacted before he consciously realized he heard it, because he was spinning, gun coming up to shoot his attacker. He never had a chance.

A second bullet tore through his shoulder, sending the gun clattering to the floor. He reached for his second weapon, but a heel pressed to the hole in his shoulder and his body spasmed, pain briefly blanking his mind.

“Who are you?” the owner of the heel demanded. “Who sent you?”

He was spared having to answer, or coming up with a sufficient “fuck you, asshole” type of answer by another gunshot, this one sending the man crumbling straight to the ground. Taemin’s arm wrapped around Jonghyun and heaved him to his feet, drawing a pained cry from his lips.

“I _fucking told you_ never to get shot!” Taemin growled in his ear, hauling him through the fluttering curtain and out onto the balcony. He could see Onew and Minho standing at the van, looking up anxiously.

“I didn’t do it on _purpose_!” Jonghyun snapped back, swearing when Taemin put the rope in his gloved hand. “Taem, I can’t hold on.”

“You’re going to have to, because I’ll be damned if I’m leaving you here and I can’t support both of us. And you’ve gotta hurry, Jonghyun, because those weren’t the only guards coming.”

Jonghyun heaved himself over the edge of the balcony and swore again. “We’ve been friends a long time, right Taemin?”

“Sixteen years.”

“If I can’t do it--”

“Shut the fuck up and just go, ‘cause I am not telling your sister that you’re dead and I couldn’t save you, are you understanding me?”

Jonghyun swallowed, tightened his grip as much as he could with his shoulder screaming in protest, and stepped off the balcony. He plunged toward the ground way too fast. It wasn’t quite a freefall, but it was close enough that he knew it was going to hurt, even if he could slow himself down.

He hit the ground hard, rolling a few feet to the side, trying to diffuse the force of the landing. Onew’s arms were around him, pulling him to his feet and shoving him into the van. He heard shouts from above, and gunshots, but then Minho and Taemin were stepping inside, slamming the doors shut and Jonghyun didn’t really know anything more for a long time.

Onew maneuvered him into a chair, and knelt at his feet to examine the gunshot through his calf. He tugged the pant leg up and Jonghyun’s fist clenched, crying out in pain.

“It’s going to be okay,” Onew said.

“Now that you’re here,” Jonghyun replied. He felt a slight pinch on his arm, and then nothing for a long time.

The next thing he did know, he was being rolled on a stretcher into what was probably the Agency, if Jonghyun recognized the wood paneling. Taemin was striding angrily by his side, arguing with Minho.

“We did the fucking job,” Taemin snapped, “get him conscious, stitch him up, give us the money, and we’re getting out of here. I’ve had _enough_ of almost getting killed for you sons of bitches--”

“Taemin,” Minho rebuked, his voice sharp. Jonghyun was surprised. Taemin rarely swore, and when he did it was generally softer curses. He’d expected it on the balcony, but here, when they were safe…

“Taemin,” Jonghyun rasped, reaching a hand out for the younger man. Taemin looked down at him, a smile breaking over his features.

“You’re awake.”

“I hurt.”

“You got shot.”

“I remember that. Where’s Onew?”

“Getting the doctor. He didn’t think you’d be awake yet,” Minho said. “They’ll be here soon. Taemin, would you like a treatment?”

Taemin nodded, face smoothing out. “Yes. A treatment would be nice.”

The two of them headed off into an upstairs office, leaving Jonghyun lying on a gurney, staring up at wooden paneling until he felt Onew’s hand on his shoulder. “How are you feeling, Jonghyun?”

“It hurts,” he repeated, putting on a purposely pathetic face. Onew laughed.

“The doctor will see you soon. Do you want a treatment?”

That… sounded nice. Yes, he wanted a treatment. “Yes, please.”

“All right,” Onew said. “We had a doctor check you out while you were unconscious and she said you could walk with help. Are you ready to try?”

With Onew’s arm around his waist, Jonghyun pushed himself up into a sitting position and then stood from the gurney. It hurt, a lot, but Onew was strong enough to keep minimal pressure on his injured leg. They headed up into the office. Onew and Kibum helped Jonghyun back onto the chair.

_“Did I fall asleep?”_

_“For a little while.”_

_“Oh. Shall I go now?”_

_“If you like.”_


End file.
